Friday, April 27, 2012

The Pirates! Band of Misfits Review

These days the animation movie genre is dominated by only
two studios: Pixar and DreamWorks. It’s not to say that these movies are bad.
With the exception of last year’s “Car’s 2” Pixar has made some of the greatest
animated movies around. However, once in a while it’s nice to see a good
quality animated movie come from an outside studio and another country.

Earlier this year there was the graceful and serene “The
Secret World of Arrietty” from the famed Studio Ghibli in Japan, which brought back
beautiful, hand drawn and painted animation. And now we have “The Pirates! Band
of Misfits” from Aardman Entertainment in The United Kingdom, bringing back
their traditional charming style of stop motion animation.

It’s a shame that this method of animation isn’t used more
often. As great as the computer animated films from Pixar and DreamWorks are,
they all look identical for the most part in terms of art. When it’s used
(Aardman’s own movies like “Chicken Run,” or more recently, Wes Anderson’s
quirky “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) it provides a completely unique looking world.
We’re looking at real objects made by hand as opposed to being drawn on a
computer.

Even though computer animation might look more realistic,
there’s something special about seeing Claymation figurines in action. It
evokes a particular sense of creativity and imagination, the kind that we had
when we were young children at home playing with dolls or action figures. When
these kinds of movies come around, they’re always refreshing to look at.

Directed by Aardman
regulars Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt, the movie takes us into the high-risk
world of classic swashbuckling piracy; rum, treasure, attacking of ships, etc.
There’s a place called Blood Island, where Pirates from all over come to brag
about their nautical successes. One of those pirates is The Ship Captain (Hugh
Grant), although he’s not exactly bragging. For years he’s been humiliated for
being a sub par pirate, and even though he has a devoted crew he can’t quite
catch a break. After many failed attempts, he decides to take on the best
pirates--in a competition to see who can pillage the most booty—and win the
coveted Pirate of the Year Award.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, why pirates? Haven’t we
seen enough of them in movies? And it’s true; a lot of the humor in the movie
is the obvious pirate themed gags, wooden legs, plank walking, and the fact
that one of the crewmembers is a man dressed up as a woman.

But by using a typical pirate movie set up and characters screenwriter
Gideon Dafoe is able to craft an interesting and nutty story. One involving a
rather petty and pathetic Charles Darwin (David Tennant) who notices that The
Captain’s prized “parrot” Polly is actually a rare bird thought to be extinct
and worth a lot of money, as well as a maniacal Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton)
who hates pirates and has an appetite for rare animals.

The best humor in the movie comes from the subtle clever
jokes that take you a little while to get.For example, early on we find out that the only award that The Captain
has won was one for “The Most Interesting Story About a Squid…” and he got
second place. Lord and Newitt don’t just appeal to their guaranteed young child
demographic, they don’t sell out for easy childish gags but instead incorporate
a lot of inside humor that adults will find funny.

On a purely technical side, the animation quality in
“Pirates” is top notch. In fact since the studio’s last movie, “Wallace and Gromit:
Curse of the Were Rabbit” the stop motion has gotten even better. The amount of
detail that has gone into all the sets and character designs--right down to the
very last ridge on the Ship Captain’s beard--is incredible. At the same time,
you can still spot a distinction in the design of “Pirates!” that’s in the past
movies. No matter what kind of characters or environments there are, there’s a
clear style, like the wide-eyed expressions and toothy grins of the characters.

“The Pirates!” is far from perfect. In terms of story and
characters, compared to Aardman’s past successes like the classic “Chicken Run”
or the near masterpiece “Wallace and Grommit,” the premise of “Pirates” isn’t
nearly as inspired. More so, the characters in both “Chicken” and “Wallace” are
far more genuine and well developed. In the new movie, The Ship Captain is the
only character who evolves while most of the supporting cast-- like the pirate
crew-- are funny but not as fully realized as they should be. Even so,
“Pirates” is solid animated entertainment and a nice break from Pixar and
DreamWorks. On top of that it’s the best pirate themed movie to come out in a
while.